You’ve probably all heard of the Ban The Bag initiative. It’s a movement to ban plastic bags statewide to reduce the shocking amount of plastic we produce. But premiers are skirting around the issue like a plastic bag in the wind.

It’s our favourite time of the year, Plastic Free July. We focus a lot on minimising waste here at Flora & Fauna. But what can we all Choose To Refuse this July (and beyond) to help minimise waste we produce and reduce plastic in landfill and oceans. Our partnership with TerraCycle ensures all our packaging is recyclable and stays above the ground being useful.

Online beauty retailer Flora & Fauna is making it easier for customers to responsibly dispose of their empty cosmetics tubes, bottles and other packaging through a partnership with TerraCycle. “We are absolutely delighted to announce that everything at Flora & Fauna is now 100 per cent recyclable,” the NSW-based eco-friendly, vegan and cruelty-free beauty retailer said on its website. The company acknowledged that packaging for some of its products can’t easily be recycled, which isn’t ideal for a brand committed to sustainability. But a new partnership with US-based recycling company TerraCycle aims to change that. TerraCycle specialises in recycling the non-recyclable, including coffee pods, beauty tubes, juice packets and chip bags, and making new products out of the waste. Customers can now send in their empty beauty tubes and containers to Flora & Fauna, which will collate and separate the items and forward them to TerraCycle. Flora & Fauna will give customers a $5 credit to the website each time they participate. It will also award prizes to customers who send in the most items for recycling throughout the year. The company explains on how it works in 4 steps: 1. Keep your Flora & Fauna box (or another box) and start filling it up with empty tubes and containers of beauty products. If your local council has a recycling program, recycle what you can there. Use us for things that can’t be recycled there. Make sure your containers are clean and free of any residual product or water. We only want to recycle the plastic, not any left over moisturiser 2. Write your name and email address on a piece of paper and put in the box. Tape your box up, head to the post office, and send to the following address: Flora & Fauna Recycling Program 9 Crusader Road Galston NSW 2159 Australia 3. Once we receive your box and separate out the contents we will add $5 credit to your account and send you an email to confirm this. Please note it is a requirement that your tubes are clean and free of residual contents in order to receive the $5 credit. If you don’t have an account we will create one for you so please do include your email address. 4. When we have received enough plastic to recycle, we will send to TerraCycle for recycling. Julie Mathers, CEO and founder of Flora & Fauna, was named to Internet Retailing’s 2017 Top 50 People in E-Commerce, which can be downloaded here.